Just Jo!

Yay!!
I got my phone back last week and my broadband back yesterday!!!
I would have blogged yesterday, but I had 505 emails to trawl through, some grotty e-mails to send off to BT and a hundred and thirty something photos to upload to Flickr. Which was more important, because if I’m honest, I’ve missed being able to Flickr seductively a whole lot more than waffling on me blog….
I also caught up with reading blogs, but only skimming over them, and then it got to gone one in the morning, and I thought I probably wouldn’t be able to comment sensibly by that point, so I didn’t, will try to today….maybe….
So…..what have we been up to???? A whole 20 days to catch up with!
I’ve got to think back to the beginning of the month….

I rebooked windsurfing, which meant we had a walk along the river and said “Wow!” a lot as we marvelled at the river rushing along….

Fell in love with a tree (although Olivia wasn’t equally as smitten….)

Olivia had a Guides trip to Bicton where they did canoeing, den building and other stuff. Lisa’s girls came back here after, so I put on a few DVDs (Monster House and Over The Hedge) and made a big bowl of popcorn. Think the microwave did most of the work though.

Went to Totnes for an Historical Visit, which included a visit to the castle (duh!) and a Treasure Trail around the town….

A very lovely day out with friends. About halfway round the trail, there was only the two of us and Hannah’s family left, which meant we got time for a proper good chat and half a shandy down on the Plains. More photos here.

Spent another Saturday afternoon with friends, but the weather was oh so much better, so we went to the park and watched the kids bashing each other with tennis rackets….

Adam helped a friend celebrate his 18th birthday in Exmouth and spent quite some time in the bathroom when he got home. Almost gave me heart failure when I came down for a wee in the early hours to find him sitting on the edge of the bath.
He felt somewhat sorry for himself the next day, as he went to the shop, he said “If I’m not back in ten minutes, call an ambulance….” Hee hee. I can laugh because it’s by far from a regular occurrence. Once every three or four months? If that. Which I think for an 18 year old isn’t bad at all.

We had a group trip to The Rock Centre, a climbing/abseiling/caving/camping wonderland. The kids only did the first two though, with a bit of zip wire and Tyrolean thrown in for good measure.

So much fun! We’re definitely going back, Olivia wants to go camping there too. I’d be up for that, ’specially as it’s so cheap. Oodles more pics here.

We didn’t go to pottery because I had a flat tyre. Which I didn’t realise ’til about 15 minutes into the ride. So we had to come back, and find out we didn’t have a pump at all (well, only a football one), by which time it wouldn’t have been worth going over there. so we didn’t.

We did, however, go to Exeter’s Green fair in the Bishop’s Palace garden….

We saw lots of friends there and joined the Devon Wildlife Trust. We had a long chat with the woman on the DWT stand, who was very impressed with Olivia’s knowledge of natural history (I was too, she sounded quite intelligent on more than one occasion!). The woman was so impressed she was going to ask which school Olivia went to that she knew so much, found out she’s home-educated and said “Ahh! That explains it then!” One up for home-ed methinks.
Oh yeah…. pics here.

We both cooed a lot at the sky that evening and kept snatching the camera off each other….

Hard to believe they were all taken over twenty minutes or so. We’ll conveniently forget the fact that all the wonderful colours and effects are due (more than likely) to pollution.

I had a horribly bad stomachache for a few days which meant I had to lie down and cuddle my froggy hot water bottle loads. Adam took Olivia to play tennis while I was being wimpy. He said she did OK for her first proper tennis. And Adam knows about these sporty type things, him being a fully qualified fitness instructor person.

Olivia had a birthday. Just the one. She’s 11 now. Last Wednesday (the 18th). We met her Nan in town, had lunch in La Tasca and did plenty of girly shopping for lots of clothes and shoes. Met Adam in town, who gave Olivia her birthday pressie, a very pink MP3 player. Managed to persuade her that Build A Bear is a complete rip off, and if she was just going to buy a bear would she really want to pay that much? “Um….no.”
And have you really got room for anymore cuddlies? “Um….no.”
And wouldn’t Ted get a teensy tiny bit upset and jealous if you ‘adopted’ (Adopted?! For crying out loud people! Get a life!!! Don’t even get me started on Cabbage Patch Dolls!)another teddy? “Um….yes.”
And isn’t there plenty more stuff you’d much rather have instead? “Um….yes.”

The three of us went bowling in the evening. And the two of them played lots of arcade games.

Home for trifle and National Treasure on DVD.

A very yummy trifle indeed! All vegan too. It even passed the Adam-who-won’t-eat-vegan-food-if-his-life-depended-on-it test. “‘Salright….” he mumbled.
The next day, we had the rest for breakfast, like you do. Lisa’s girls came over in the afternoon. They made cards for Brown Owl who was leaving. Two of them did. Olivia made one for herself which she is also going to post to herself. Just to see how long it takes.
They watched the rest of Over The Hedge, with the required amount of popcorn dutifully supplied. They all disappeared off for a barbecue, with the veggie and vegan having to take their own pre-cooked (by yours truly) burgers. Lisa brought them all back again for chocolate cake and “Happy Birthday to you”.

She’ll be having a proper party when the weather is slightly more predictable (just in time for her fiftieth then), because she wants to invite everyone. And my house is too small so they’d all have to be banished outside. With any luck she’ll forget she wants a party at all. Hopefully. Fingers crossed.

Almost caught up now….yay!

Friday we went on a Natural History trip to Staverton to do a bit of pond and stream dipping. Ooh looky….photos….who’da thunk??

And ooh looky again….more here.

Whizzed back to Totnes to catch the train home, only to find out it had been delayed due to ‘adverse weather conditions in other parts of the country’. Then finding out on the train just how adverse the weather had truly been. Not nice.
That evening was spent at a cocktail party. Ahem. Which gave rise to a classic quote, “I love watching Supernatural when I’m drunk, ‘cos there’s three Jensen Ackles.” I won’t say who said it, just that it wasn’t me. And there’s no photographic evidence because I purposefully left my camera at home.

So….in between all that lot, Olivia has been doing tons of workbooks, finishing her last maths one the day before her birthday. Which meant we just had to buy another one on her birthday. Because I’m evil like that. And yes, I made her carry it home too!!
We’ve got through about half the library. Olivia finally discovering the joys of Swallows and Amazons.
Olivia finished her unicorn picture at Di’s.
We’ve both had haircuts, Olivia’s built a den out in the back garden (that’ll be Swallows and Amazons then), of which I have yet to take a photo. Bad mummy moment. Oh well.
We’ve been enjoying some of Olivia’s produce from the garden, sharing carrots with Lisa and the girls, a few broadbeans, onions and peas today. I’ve got a funny feeling we won’t actually be getting an entire meal all in one go, because Olivia is eating things as soon as they’re ready straight off the plant. Hmmm…..

Yesterday was obviously spent in gleeful enjoyment of broadband (and completely ignoring anything Harry related, sorry, the more the fuss and hype about something, the more I dig my heels in and resist, I’m perverse like that) and now I have to go. Olivia is desperate for Adam to show her how to put/download/upload (whatever!) music onto her MP3 player. It’s pink don’t you know.

Oh yeah….I remember….I think….
Monday, we were being all arty again….I think….
Tuesday, we went to see Di and we did….um….not a lot really….we did eat cake though, a huge great chocolate affair, so we obviously had to eat a lot, ’til we felt sick in fact….and drank tea….
Wednesday was group day. There was supposed to be yoga, so we got there in plenty of time, Olivia with her mat tucked under her arm. But blokey never showed.
But Louise did….with an addition….

Guess what she had? Can you? Can you really??
The afternoon’s entertainment was provided by Dan the Hat….pic city central….

Lots of fun. Then Olivia’s community garden, where I meant to take some progress photos, but I’d run out of memory. Not me, the camera….the SD card to be specific. Then drama and home again.

Thursday….what did we do Thursday? Slightly worrying blank….nope, I’ve already blogged it….most confusing. Adam (the fitness instructor) got the results of his practical.

Friday, we were out early to set off to Dartmouth for the day with the photography group. Not as early as it could have been, because the bus goes past the end of the road, so we didn’t have to haul ourselves into town. Most convenient. I like buses like that.
Yes….photography group means photos….
We met up with everyone and had a walk round part of the town, snapping away.

Then got the ferry to the castle….to take more photos….and have lunch on the beach….

The plan was for the two of us to leave in time to get the last ferry back to Dartmouth (Yeah, I know we could have walked, but ferries are cool!), but Olivia and B had bonded big time and persuaded us to stay longer. Mainly because B accused me of being completely unreasonable.
So back to the beach it was after everyone else had gone. Jolly glad we did too, we spotted a seal out at sea (well, Gordon did…), but the photo was ridiculously small. A blob in the water, not worth the space it took up on the memory card….
And we spotted a jellyfish (well, Gordon did….)! Olivia caught it and it was deposited in a bucket for us all to have a look at before releasing it back into the wild. Olivia, oh so bravely, conquering her fear of jellyfish. Where it comes from I have no idea, it’s not as though she has been viciously attacked by hordes of them in the past or anything.
But she was viciously attacked by all the barnacles on the rocks….although she remains completely unconcerned about them….

The other 37 photos are here in a set on Flickr. Look, it was a photography trip, I had to take lots of photos!
We got a lift back to Totnes (bizarrely finding out that Hannah knows my uncle Nick from the jazz band he used to play in at the Seven Stars in Totnes!) and caught the second to last bus, getting home at almost nine. As in 9pm. About a 12 hour day. But a very lovely 12 hour day.

So….yesterday….we left the house even earlier to catch a train to Bristol. To visit the Bristol Vegan Fayre. More photos….

A recurring theme throughout the day was the repetitive questioning by a certain Olivia child….
“Is it really all vegan??” (We’d seen a milkshake stand)
“Can I really eat everything??” (First stop was the central market with lots of food just begging to be tasted!)
“How can he do that??” (We were watching a contortionist)
“Is everyone really vegan??”
I lost count of the number of times she asked each question!!

We missed lots of talks….all of them actually, we were there for food and entertainment. We got both in bucket loads. We did catch a cookery demonstration by Jane Easton from VIVA. She was doing a mushroom risotto, followed by raspberry syllabub. She made a huge fan of Olivia by letting her have the glass full of syllabub that had been used for presentation purposes.
Cue more repetitive questioning, “So, mum, how much syllabub did you get?? Ha!!”

It was extremely hot and muggy the entire day. Fortunately, there was cool wet water aplenty just outside the venue, so we had a paddle midway through the afternoon.

Mr Brett, him of the stripy outfit, sat on my lap. You can imagine my joy at having a sweaty man sitting on me. Just think ‘armpits far too close to my face’….yeah, you get the idea….

We’d missed the display by the Sikh martial artists because we’d been watching Jane Easton. But we did get to see Harem Nights, a North African band complete with belly dancers. Olivia was fascinated with them and got as close to the stage as she could to take photos. Lots of photos, I had to whittle them down a bit….

Another very enjoyable day, even with the sticky weather. We saw a few friends from EFFA, one was working on the Animal Aid stand, the other two were just up for the day like us.
It started raining as we went back to the train station. Those big big raindrops that seem to fall slower than the others. My favourite kind of rain.
So….we got back even later than we did the day before….and went straight to bed. There’s a surprise.
I seem to remember saying something about doing a photo prompt catch-up today. Think that’ll be happening tomorrow now! As will Sarah’s kind tagging. ‘Cos I’m still tired. And we blitzed the bathroom this afternoon. Which means that I may have need of a glass of wine. But I don’t have any in the house. I’m feeling too lazy to go to the shop. Olivia’s too young to go for me. Adam’s already gone out. Looks like a wine free night again tonight. Which is not fair, seeing as I resisted the Apple Bar (lots of cider!) so nobly at the Fayre yesterday. Looks like I’ll be sulking then.

I have a query. If we get up lateish, how do we manage to get loads more done than if we get up bright and early?? Like yesterday, we got up at 10am, and two hours later we’d achieved far more than we did today by noon, despite getting up two and a half hours earlier….
Most odd….
Olivia read a bit of the Grand Western Canal Study pack from Thursday, then we went to the World Vegetarian cafe at the community centre in town. Very, very yummy food. It was all vegan as well. I think they called it a ‘vegetarian’ cafe to get more people in. Vegans are too weird for most people apparently….
I got a bit of a shock as we were queuing for our platter, Anderson yelled “JO!” I turned round to see a camera in his hand…. “Woah! No! I don’t do photos!” and whizzed back round. Phew! That was close! Olivia posed happily for him, but then she’d do anything for him!

We saw some of our friends from EFFA, the last meeting was cancelled and there’s still not another booked up yet. We had a catch-up chat, then got on with the very important business of eating our grub.
We had a large plateful between the two of us, 3 bean chilli, falafel, Thai coconut curry, spare ribs, coleslaw, potato curry and a rice salad. Olivia had dug out her vegan T-shirt to wear so that no-one was left in any doubt as to her preferences.

She watered her garden. Yay! The spring onions and onions are poking through now as well! More chat with friends at the centre, then off to the museum. Because we haven’t been for ages….
This was primarily to book us in for a showing of Night At The Museum in May. In the museum! How cool is that??! As soon as I saw it advertised, I thought “Oh yeah!! I can’t not go!!”
My second thought was that Olivia might quite like to see it too. I asked her, she was fairly non-committal…..and if you believe that, you’ll believe anything!
While we were there we had a look at the Ingenious Gadgets exhibition. We saw something that Eleanor might appreciate, a clockwork flytrap….if I remember correctly, there’s a wide band that you coat with jam or something similar, the flies get stuck, as the band turns round, they then get crushed. Hmmm…. how pleasant….

An early post today, because I think we have the rest of the day to waste away. There was some mention of workbooks I think, but that was very quickly forgotten. Olivia is completing the questions in the study pack and doing a bit of colouring in, and that will be the extent of any home-ed today methinks.
There may be the chance of a film later (I didn’t watch Withnail last night, I was in the bath too long!), but it will be an early night for her again. We have another early(ish) start tomorrow. We’ll be helping out the Devon Wildlife Trust with some conservation, checking ponds and building nest boxes. Oh yes, there will be photos!!

Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi! Or as Olivia kept saying, “Ona sooty! Funky washy!” Well, let’s face it, she has enough trouble with the english language.
We were up bright and early and in town by 10 this morning. We saw our postman on our way down the road. The postman who Olivia has a bit of crush on, yes(!), another one! Methinks I’m going to have to keep a close watch on her when she gets to her teenage years!
I think I’m safe with this postman though, got a funny feeling he’d much rather be ‘friends’ with Adam if he ever got the chance. I have tried to point this out in gentle and subtle ways to Olivia….but ‘Olivia’ and ’subtle’ just don’t mix. So I came right out with it today, “He’s gay!”
“Ohhh! Why are all the best looking ones gay??” Hmm….she’s ten, I’m sure it took me a lot longer to figure that one out!

We picked up the book on Japan from the library and tried our best to locate some soya beans to roast and chuck about the place. But we couldn’t, so we got dried kidney beans instead. We also ran into our friends from EFFA who were running a stand in the high street, so we stopped for a natter and apologised again for missing the last meeting!
We got home, read about Setsubun, every place I’ve looked for information has spelt it with an ‘a’, yesterday and today, it’s all been a ‘u’. On the Japanese site it’s a ‘u’, so I think I’ll stick with that. They’re Japanese, they probably know how to spell it. More than most English would know how to spell their own national language anyway.
The magic garden got assembled,

as did the Zen garden. Olivia picked some rosemary to take the place of hiragi hung in doorways, we sort of glossed over the dead sardine heads….there’s a surprise….

Olivia got extremely giggly and embarrassed as I *made* her throw the beans out of the front door and shout, “Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!”

But had no problem lobbing them round the front room….
And much like yesterday when Maisy refused to play the part of rodent, Adam refused to be a demon so that Olivia could pelt him with beans! He dashed out of the house for a game of football in Bow….or Crediton….(I remembered to ask how they got on today, 2-0 to Adam’s team and he scored!)

In keeping with all things Japanese today, Olivia made some little paper kimono dolls.

She also did another scrapbook page….

We finished off the day with a DVD, and although Groundhog Day (the film) got here today, we watched Howl’s Moving Castle instead. It was recommended to us by Liz at the library. I confess to not actually watching much Japanese animation, so I have no idea if it’s typical of that genre, but we enjoyed it anyway!
That’s been our day today, Olivia still hasn’t had a chance to update her blog, so I get the feeling she will be doing it in one fell swoop tomorrow! She’s been making notes today to see how much she can remember and eyeing up Flickr to see what photos she can put on….

And reading Miss C’s blog this morning reminded me that today’s the day the music died 48 years ago.

I must have been more manic than I realised over the last few days because I’m abso-bloomin’-lutely shattered tonight! So this will be a quickie….saying that, giving my tendency to waffle, it may well not be….

It was group today and we actually made it. Yee-hah! (Sorry! I’ve got Johnny Cash on at the mo! Actually, it’s the soundtrack,so it’s Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon!) OK, so group started at 10:30 and we left the house at 11:09….but we got there! What more do you want?!

It was a Victorian theme, and I’d got a message, via the group’s Yahoo list yesterday, asking if anyone had anything related to bring in. Well, Olivia did a project on it last year and had done a time-line. A fantastic time-line with coins, photos, drawings, writing and replica thingy’s on it. So I said we could bring that in if they wanted. But last year we’d had a home-ed display at the main library. Olivia let a lot of her work be used in it. Unfortunately, some complete grot-bag (I’m getting angry all over again just thinking about it!) nicked one of her books. An album of photos and writing she’d done about various activities at an outdoor centre that the group had done last year. She’d put a lot of time and work into it and was so proud of it. It was so obviously a child’s work that it beggars belief someone could nick it.

Anyway, given that background, she is very wary about letting any of her work be used at all. For whatever purpose. So in my reply to the request, I said we can bring it in if you want, but it will have to be watched carefully. This morning Olivia was panicking a bit again, so I said we’d only take it in if anyone had replied and wanted us to take it in. No-one replied, so we didn’t take it in, not feeling at all guilty about going back on what I’d said….

About an hour after we’d got there, one of the lovely new mums asked me if we’d brought the time-line in….ooops….did feel a bit guilty then. But I explained the situation and she was fine, understood why not. Think she actually felt a bit bad herself about not responding….

While I was checking for replies first thing, I did have a couple of funny emails that made me laugh and set me up for the day quite nicely. Which is always a good thing.

Group was good. Olivia was extremely pleased to see a certain young man and I didn’t see her for the rest of the day. Apart from when I so cruelly dragged her in for some lunch….

In the afternoon there was a committee meeting to sort out a grant, funding all sorts of environmentally based, outdoorsy, educational type things for the next year. There’s a lot of good things coming up, so I’m excited….think Olivia might be as well. I may tell her, or I may not. I may pretend I’m much younger than I am just so I can do it all myself!

Olivia has decided she wants to learn how to crochet. Her nan’s friend gave her a crocheted blanket and it seems to have inspired her. I can knit, but haven’t got the foggiest when it comes to crochet. What to do? Oh yes, the library! They have books, don’t you know?! On all sorts of things, would you believe?! So we went to the children’s section (after group) for Olivia to make nice with the librarian. They didn’t have any books on crochet there, so Liz ordered as many as she could find on the data base for Olivia to choose which ones she actually liked. Which I thought was very nice, and I don’t like that word because it’s boring(!), but it *was* nice of her!

Then we headed to the arts center for Olivia to do her drama thing, via WHSmiths. I got my Art of Knitting, Olivia got disappointed. Because her Bugs magazine comes out fortnightly. Ha! Mine is weekly!! Perhaps it’s wrong to take so much joy in a child’s disappointment….I’m really not sure….oh well….

J and M were at drama again, so it was another nice chat with Lin. Fortunately, my left hand is absolutely fine, so I had no problem at all in holding a large glass of red wine (or two!) When the kids had finished and reappeared, it was M’s turn for some classic one-liners a la Olivia. I’ll leave it to Lin to blog about her own child’s witticisms….I can’t remember, and Lin neglected to have paper and pen handy to take notes!

I had a phonecall on Monday night to remind me about an EFFA (Exeter Friends For Animals) meeting tonight. It’s a group we belong to that raises money on behalf of various animal charities and awareness campaigns. We have been quite negligent in the last few months, we missed the last meeting, lots of events over Christmas,and the one that Olivia is most upset about, a trip to an animal sanctuary that we’d donated money to….

But we were both so tired that we really couldn’t make it after drama. It would have meant being out for another hour and a half, not getting home ’til almost 10pm. So I shall be sending an apologetic email in a minute….

We came home and finished Olivia’s stew from last night. Why does stew always taste better the next day?